Word Clouds, also known as ”tag clouds” and “keyword clouds” are a unique and powerful visual depiction of words.
You can create artsy tag clouds at Wordle. Here is word cloud created when Wordle looked at our homepage (on Feb 25th)
Tripadvisor announced the Top 10 dirtiest hotels in America, based on TripAdvisor traveler ratings for cleanliness. This is the fourth-year running.
This awe inspiring list of dirty hotels is worth browsing through! Here are the top three.
1) Hotel Carter, New York City, New York
I think it would have been cleaner to sleep on the street
2) Continental Bayside Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida
One bed had blood on the sheets, other body fluids smeared on the windows, exposed wires, extremely poor service.
3) New York Inn, New York City, New York
Roaches everywhere! One so big he could have helped me bring my suitcase upstairs
Here is a Wordle Word Cloud made from some of the reviews
Several of these hotels have been at the top of this list a few years running. Is there a conspiracy afoot?
A few days ago I witnessed a customer who received nearly $5,000 in multiple bookings during a 30 day period from Facebook!
I was stunned. I have personally felt that using Facebook and Myspace for business purposes was misguided. I just don’t think the return was there for what was really a big endeavor. It is probably easier to manage a PPC account than build a Facebook or Myspace presence of any “value”. At least Twitter is a lot easier and potentially more fun.
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During the last two years, there has been an explosion of reviews onto the vacation rental industry scene. Clearly the consuming public is gravitating towards reviews. More VR managers are adding them to their website because the economic climate calls for low-cost solutions.
Do you know of a website (maybe yours) that is using reviews in this niche? We are looking for examples of how it can be done!
I am also a big fan of using a review management service that promise increased distribution to places like Tripadvisor or Google local using services like Flipkey.
Readers, please Comment below and share examples of similar sites that use reviews:
Tubemogul is making it easy to upload, distribute and track your video online
People are watching video on the Internet and lots of it! Comscore reported that Americans viewed 12.7 billion videos online in the month of November 2008. That is 34% more than only one year ago! If you are not utilizing video in your web marketing, you are missing a very large market.
The options for distributing video on the web can be overwhelming so I am going to share some information with you about a website that makes it easy to get started uploading and distributing videos to multiple video sharing sites.
comScore’s latest data on online video is out and, as usual, Google rules as the home to 38%, or 4,358,306,000, of the 11,476,886,000 videos viewed in March 2008.
Despite the slick offerings on networks like Fox Interactive and Disney Online, more people watch more videos on YouTube (a Google site) than anywhere else on the net. 84.8 million people watched 4.3 billion videos on YouTube in March. That’s over 50 videos per viewer on YouTube in just one month!
Some video stats you should be aware of: over 73% of the people on the net-139,576,000- in the US viewed video over the web and the average person watched a little over 7 ½ minutes of video per day. This a 13% increase over February 2008.
What does this tell us? People are watching a boatload of videos online and the number of viewers and the number of videos each person watches is growing at an astounding rate.
What does this mean? If you aren’t using web video to grab attention for your business, you are in grave danger of being left behind.
How can you get into video? For inspiration, go to YouTube, search for terms related to your business and see what other people are doing. See which ones are viewed and commented on frequently. Watch and learn. It really is that easy.
I was an Army brat, so every few years while I was a kid, we moved. That meant a new neighborhood (sometimes in a new country!) and a new school. Out of necessity, I learned to make friends quickly, because if you didn’t put yourself out there, you’d get pretty lonely. The other kids already had plenty of friends and didn’t have much motivation to seek me out.
The most effective technique was to hang out where I thought the other kids would eventually be – places like the playground or the ballfield or the corner store. Sure enough, someone would show up, we’d start up a conversation and I’d at least have one new acquaintance that might develop into a friend.
Even if we didn’t bond much, they would introduce me to their siblings and others in the neighborhood. Just being in their presence increased my approachability.
Another technique was to pay attention to which other houses on the block contained kids around my age. When I got bored enough, I’d summon up my courage, go knock on the door and ask whoever answered if they (or their boy or girl) could come out to play. Even if they could not play right then and there, I was often invited in and introduced. Sometimes it resulted in a whole family full of new friends. Other times, it opened the door for them to talk to me at school or even come to knock at my house.
This is the way I like to think of social websites. With search, we are waiting for people to come find us. However, like the established kids in a neighborhood, they probably have plenty of friends and little motivation to seek us out. They may not even know we exist, which makes it even tougher.
Some social websites, like Facebook, allow us to go hang out where the people are and strike up relationships. We may also gain new relationships through that initial tier of contacts. We become approachable to others and, before you know it, we have a great social circle. People who were never even looking for us have now discovered us because we’ve gone to where they are.
Other sites, like Linked In, provide more of a can you come out and play environment. You need to put yourself out there a little, asking for introductions and recommendations, but the rewards can be well worth it.
So, if you’re having a hard time embracing social websites, don’t give up just yet. Go where the people you want to have relationships with already are and allow yourself to be discovered. The key is finding the right places to go-the places where the people you want to interact with are already hanging out.
Adding this layer of discovery to your search marketing can reap unforeseen rewards for you and your online business.
upper photo from Easternblot
lower photo from Moody75
